They motored across the continent to the remote fastness where the Countess Zornec was housed upon her husband's estate and spent some weeks with the couple. It was easy, even for Adelle's unobservant eyes, to detect signs of trouble in this new marriage. Sadie had a temper. All the girls at the Hall had known that. Indeed, she had the characteristics of her mother, who report said had been an Irish girl in one of the U. P. construction camps when old Paul found her—that was long before his fortune came, when he was a simple contractor for the railroad. Sadie had an unfortunate mouth, with coarse teeth, and when she was crossed, this long mouth wrinkled into a snarl. The Count apparently had already found out how to cross her. Indeed, he did not disguise his contempt for his bride's origins, and sometimes decorum was badly strained at the dinner-table. Sadie was little and lithe and was something of the gamine—her "tricks," as the girls called her daring maneuvers, had always pleased men. But the Count did not like "tricks." He wished more dignity in the wife of a Zornec and did not hesitate to tell Sadie so. Nor did he care to have her gaminerie attract other men. In short, as Sadie confided to Adelle in a burst shortly after her arrival, the Count was a "regular brute." It seemed that Europeans made very good lovers, but dangerous husbands. Adelle was to be congratulated for having married an American, "who at least knew how to treat a woman," as if she were more than his horse or his servant. Adelle might once have been pleased by this admission of envy of her Archie; but now she had her own troubles. However, she did not confess them to any one. She said good-naturedly that it was hard being married to most any man, until you got used to it. Sadie shook her small head and showed her large teeth.
"I'll show him," she said, "that he can't wipe his feet on me! An American woman won't stand what he's used to."
Adelle suspected dire things, physical violence even, and was silent.
Sadie continued,—"Some day he'll go too far, and then—" She closed her lips over the teeth in a hard fashion.
Adelle wondered what she would do with the Count in such an event. She could hardly divorce him, for the Pauls were Catholic as well as the Zornecs, of course. It was very inconvenient being a Catholic, she reflected, if you were to be married. And it seemed less easy to drop a husband in Europe than it was in America. There would be trouble about the children and all that.
Archie did not find the Count so bad, although he growled sometimes at his host's thinly veiled contempt for all Americans. Archie felt superior to the foreign nobleman who had made a rich American marriage. At least he had taken an heiress from his own people, and there was distinction in that. But the Count and Archie hunted and rode together, also drank deeply of the Hungarian wines and excellent French champagne that the castle contained. He was of the opinion that Sadie Paul had got "what she deserved."
"She needed a man to throw her around a bit—she was always too fresh," he told Adelle.
Archie believed in the strong hand with women. Adelle wondered whether Archie would ever attempt to use it upon her and what she would do under such circumstances. She was sure that she would resent it dreadfully. That would seem too much for any woman to bear—to marry a poor man and support him quite handsomely in idleness and then be abused by him. But fortunately it had not got to that point in their marriage—nothing worse than sullenness and silence or angry words had happened thus far.
The Davises terminated their visit sooner than had been expected. The little boy's ill health was made the excuse, but the fact was that the tempestuous atmosphere of the Zornec household was far from pleasant to easy-going people. They engaged the couple for a return visit the next spring in California and motored off to Paris. The Zornecs had been a good object lesson to them, and for the rest of their trip they remained good friends, being almost lover-like in their respect for each other. They seemed to feel the dangers ahead and restrained their moods. Finally, gathering together their plunder they sailed home, and this time did not make any attempt to evade the custom-house ordeal. They paid nobly for the privilege of being American citizens and did not demur. Adelle insisted upon that, remembering their former experience. Archie was in such haste to get back to California where "Seaboard was acting queer" that he would have paid double for the privilege of entering his own country. They sped swiftly across the continent to their new home.